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- Nov 25, 2012
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Family ALWAYS comes first!
Ed
Ed
Ramblings and Such From Hunting Coyote
- Thread starter DSheetz
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We have been warmer than normal with more wind than we usually get in the summer. The hills are green, and the antelope and coyotes stand out well in it. Some of the grasses like cheat grass are headed out and going to seed raising the fire danger so we should have that in mind as we are out enjoying ourselves now, as we always do. Tomorow is Father's Day all you fathers and grandfathers have a good relaxing day and do what it is that you enjoy doing on Father's Day. If you have been up on the mountains around the Rocky Mountains, you will have noticed the weekly changes in the blooms of the plant life there. This year the pines are really putting out the pollen, the choke cherries look like they will have a bumper crop, last year some of them didn't even bloom. The old timers always told me it was so we could put up enough food for a long hard winter, time will tell. For now, I'm just enjoying the green and warmer weather instead of shoveling the white off of the sidewalks. You all stay safe and enjoy the family and friends this weekend.
They told me it's not the heat it's the humidity and I always replied back okay if you say so, but I don't believe you completely any time it's over eighty degrees it's the heat too. I was working in a boiler one time when the tubes were so hot that we had to put wooden planks on them to keep our boot soles from melting it was over 120 degrees F, outside temp was below zero F, I went to get a drink of water and the only cup left had a tea bag in it so I asked the guy who's tea bag it was if I could use it to get a drink of water if I put the tea bag back when I was done. He got really loud with me, so I went and got some more cups and brought them back got a drink and was about to go back in the boiler when he walked up looked at the tea bag and threw it and the cup, in the trash can then reached for a new cup. I took the cup and told him no those are my cups you just threw yours away and went back to the boiler with my cups. For as long as I can remember I was told to treat people as I wanted to be treated but I have found that most people don't like it when you treat them as they treat you if it's not very nice. Yes, I can be the way that I need to be as the situation dictates. And that applies to hunting predators adapt to the situation as needed for that particular animal.
My wife and I needed to go down to Loveland Co. yesterday. As we were getting close to Cheyenne, I started noticing that the grass was greener by the edge of the highway, as we got into Colorado the only green grass was about ten feet from the edge of the road to the edge. All of the pastureland was brown and dry. I don't think the grass even sprouted without any irrigation. Fortunately, here where we live is green, we can always use some moisture but at least our grass greened up this year. The wind hasn't let up this year as it normally does after March, today we were averaging 23-mph with gusts in the 30-mph range, with a high of 75 degrees F. Next week we are supposed to be in the area of 90 degrees F. The yellow clover that grows beside the highway is stunted and short from the wind around here and some of the weeds that normally start growing in August are starting to sprout already. I haven't seen any signs of the hemorrhagic disease in the rabbits here as of this time, which is good as they are just starting to make a comeback from the last disease that went through them here, it wasn't tularemia that time. I feel very blessed to live where I do and that our weather is as good as it is so many people are either flooding or burning up.
I was visiting with my friend that retired last year, from control work, he got called and came up to do some work in May. His new dog is working out well and they found the two denning pairs they came up to work on in three days as well as taking the pups. He started to let him go out to do some decoying at a distance from him. He uses a good wide heavy collar on them to keep the coyotes from killing them while they are learning not to let the coyotes get hold of them. He is still using the 6.5x284 that I built for long range coyote work, I ran the 120 grain Nosler ballistic tips for my needs and was holding an eight-inch group at a thousand yards, with a five shot ragged hole at one hundred yards. He decided to let his wife use it for her elk rifle so tuned a load using 140 Berger bullets and got it to .750-inch groups at one hundred yards, she has gotten two elk with it and loves it so now she lets him use her rifle. They got some hard rain and a lot of hail the other day down at their place in Chugwater. he said there was 6 inches of hail on the ground and 25 yards of fence washed out at a draw in the pasture, but the livestock all survived it. Some of the house windows were broken out and the roof on all of the building were destroyed. He said the grass in the pastures was beaten to the ground so they will need to feed till it comes back in a week or so. I do feel fortunate that we didn't get that weather here as well as the weather that so many others have been experiencing this year, hot dry or drenching hard flooding rains. My wife's little Shih Tzus is doing better since we got back from Loveland and she is on her new meds. We are hopeful that they have figured out what was wrong with her she was only 9.2 pounds and dropped to 7.4 pounds and wasn't able to keep any food down, they think it was Addison's disease causing it, it's treatable and she can have a good life. It's hard to believe how attached a person becomes to their dog friends. While we were down there a lady brought her older dog in and go news that it was not going to make it because of cancer. They have an area where people can go spend time with them in a nice grassy area and say your fair wells to your friends.
That's ALOT of hail. Who knows what normal weather is anymore. We've went from drought to monsoons back to drought all in about 3 months. Just a matter of time before the rain returns. Good to hear your dog is going to be ok. We just lost two of ours to cancer, one just before mothers day and our oldest over the winter. Been a rough few months. They are members of our family and honestly loved more than most family members lol.
Yesterday we got to 98 degrees F with winds gusting around thirty mph. Today we got to 100 degrees and had wind gusts to 23 mph. With the hot dry winds and humidity running around 20 percent the grass is drying out you can see the difference in the color of it in just two days. But at least we had new grass growth this spring. My grandma always said that cured grass had more nutrition for livestock than green grass, but I sure like looking at green grass better than yellow or brown grass, mostly because we don't have green grass very long in most years. Calling is hard this year due to the windy conditions, it seems like on the days that it isn't windy I have other things going on that keeps me from going out, but that is changing, and I should be having more free time soon.
When I was younger, I had some tiger strip cammo, it worked well in the timber type country but not so good out here where I live, I use a lot of the brush cammo pattern in the spring and early summer, later in the year brown duck clothing that has been washed a lot and faded out works about as good as anything in my part of the country. One time I wrote and asked a well-known cammo company if they had considered making a brown tiger strip cammo using the same colors as the Navy tri brown pattern, they never replied to me. I did use the Navy's tri brown some but found it to be kind of noisy compared to the cotton brown duck, and it for sure wasn't as warm. I don't like the Velcro fastening systems that sound just isn't a sound that you hear in nature, and you have to open it really slow not to make a loud sound with it, at least with a zipper you can wax it and make it quiet. Buttons and even snaps are quieter than velcro. With a zipper you can use wax bar soap or even the kids or grandkids crayons to quiet them down and make them work smoothly. Who thinks about this kind of thing????? besides me or people like me. It's all a part of the way my life was for so many years the things that a person who is annelretentave about hunting the predator's kind of just evolves to thinking about noise control and not being easily seen.
Straight Shooter
Well-Known Member
Dave, that is why I went to Natural Gear camo out west.
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2012
- Messages
- 312
Dave,
I went to King's Camo "Desert Shadow" for this environment and I think it would work well for you too.
The vegetation and soil colors are very similar in both areas.
One of my coworkers wore one of their long-sleeved T-shirts in that pattern and I was amazed at how he just disappeared when he sat down on an open hillside.
I had to have some of that!
Ed
I went to King's Camo "Desert Shadow" for this environment and I think it would work well for you too.
The vegetation and soil colors are very similar in both areas.
One of my coworkers wore one of their long-sleeved T-shirts in that pattern and I was amazed at how he just disappeared when he sat down on an open hillside.
I had to have some of that!
Ed
windypants
Well-Known Member
I guess they make mistakes and have fatal accidents too. Speared by a stick!
WOW! That's a first for me but I'm sure these type of things happen more than we think.
Yes, they do I have seen a few animals that had fatal accidents or made fatal mistakes, a beaver with a tree on it, a bobcat with a mouth full of porcupine quills, two adult coyotes and five pups killed by lightening, not to mention all of the ones that get killed on roads. I've had a deer run into the side of my truck and break her neck and an antelope that ran out and got its head stuck between the bumper and fender of my truck, that was probably the messiest one as the tire went over its body and decapitated it.
